Yu Gi Oh GX Week Gift Exchange!!
Due to some tech issues on my side we're a tiny bit late and I apologise, but I took part in the gift exchange and this is for @aberooski !! I hope you like <3
Prompt: What if Shirley survived Jim's duel with the Supreme King and stuck around with Axel? Jim told him to take care of her if anything happened to him, and unfortunately for Axel I love the potential angst that would come from a reality where he had to come through on that promise.
The kind of quiet that comes with grief is hollow.
There is a stillness that sucks any remaining soul out of the bodies of those left behind.
Axel had no idea how long he had been sitting with the Eye crushed into his palm. It could have been seconds, or years, and he wouldn’t have known or cared any more in either scenario.
What mattered, in the span of nothing between space and time, was that the man that meant everything to him was gone. Vanished into dust right in front of him.
The only thing that was real, outside of the orb clutched tight in his fist, were the pointed scales stabbing into his leg through the thick fabric of his trousers.
”Promise you’ll look out for her, if anything happens."
Of course he promised; he never once thought he would have to follow through. Not once did he think anything would actually happen to Jim Cook.
His hand gently rested on the rugged scales adorning Shirley’s back, and Axel could’ve sworn she sighed with devastation equal only to his. He stared out into the distance, eyes glazing over as silence fell again.
There was a tiny part of him that was glad of the company; glad to still have a piece of him, a piece of him that not only understood but understood deeply how he was feeling. This comfort, however, didn’t make a path any clearer. It didn’t mean he had any idea what to do next.
He tuned back into his body to feel the coarse texture of Shirley’s scales. The rough, almost armor-like plates of keratin that stuck out like arrow heads. ‘Scutes’, he had come to find out from Jim, who would stop at nothing to teach him all about his beloved best friend. What he wouldn’t give to hear, in his voice again, that word which had made Axel burst into laughter.
“You’re kidding me, scutes?? Nah you’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I most certainly am not, nor would I ever when doing something as important as educating you.”
His hand landed on Axel’s shoulder, a smirk curling his lip up as he chuckled slightly. It made Axel’s breath falter, just for a moment, made his heart skip in his chest. He liked to think he’d recovered quickly, but the growing smile on Jim’s face made it more than clear he had been caught out.
“Nothing to be ashamed of, Brodie, we all have gaps in our knowledge, and I am more than happy to fill them in this sense.” He winked.
The tear that rolled down his cheek as the memory filled his mind cracked him like lightning going through a tree, cracking and splintering him from the inside to reveal a raw inferno inside. He let out a gasping sob as he just couldn’t bear it any more, his hand moving off of Shirley as he clamped his eyes shut. He couldn’t take it, the reality that he was gone and there was nothing familiar left. He wasn’t there, he wasn’t ever going to be there ever again, and it had hit him all at once.
His breathing was rough, like inhaling sand, and they came out like growling screams. He didn’t care what heard him, he hadn’t felt this strongly for as long as he could remember, and there was no forcing it back in once it had been released.Tears rolled from his eyes and down his face, as well as down his hand and arm to land in the dark ash between his legs. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t think, and all he heard was those raucous cries mixed with his own voice muttering back at him. “Why, why, this shouldn’t have happened, why didn’t I-”
The shift of weight made him pause as something huge and heavy crushed his legs. With another gasp he pulled his hand from his face as fight or flight kicked in, yet all he could do was freeze when his brain caught up with what was happening to him.
Shirley had pawed down his legs and laid her thick, heavy body across them. She was cold against him, cold and heavy and smooth and the sudden change made his panic stop in its tracks. She set her head down on the fist which held the Eye and heaved out another heavy sigh, but her eyes never left his face, head cocked slightly so she could look at him. She blinked up at him slowly, almost like a cat.
After a moment, Axel was able to take in a shallow, but calmer breath. He stared down at her with a new understanding, and she looked at him with those eyes that knew more than many could ever hope to.
He stomped out the fire, after a day that had worn them down unlike any they’d had so far. Wave after wave of dueling, creatures coming from all directions and they were able to rest in comfort only for a moment; only for now, before they were found again. They couldn’t rest for long, but it was important to make sure they both stayed strong enough to keep fighting and carry on their mission. They owed it to themselves, their friends, and everyone else in this world and any other for that matter.
Axel turned his attention from his thoughts to find Shirley had sprawled herself over Jim’s legs, and the tension he’d watched build over the day finally washed away, along with a sigh and his eyes slipped shut as Shirley rumbled out a low noise. “Finally,” Jim’s voice rang in his ears, “we can stop for a minute.”
A smile crept over Axel’s face; it brought a certain flutter to his heart to see him relax, see him smile, see him comfortable. It reminded him of the reasons they agreed to do all this in the first place.
People do crazy things for love, and what they had set out to do was certainly crazy, but it was the reminder that when all was said and done they could relax, that’s what made it worth it. “You sleep, I’ll take the first watch.”
His stare didn’t falter, and neither did hers. He sniffed, taking in progressively deeper breaths. Shirley stayed where she was, her head pressing down more on his hand as she relaxed totally on top of him. His muscles relaxed just a little, just enough, and she sighed again.
“Just relax,” Jim cooed gently, as Axel’s hand moved closer to the crocodile. “She can sense when you’re nervous.”
Shirley moved over to him carefully, clearly weighing the scene in front of her with more intelligence than any dinosaur should have. After staring for what felt to Axel like a millenia, She opened her great cavernous maw and let out a heavy breath that came out a hissing sound straight out of a nightmare. “Go on,” Jim squeezed his shoulder. “She won’t hurt ya.”
Axel gently set the shrimp pinched between thumb and forefinger down onto her tongue and removed his hand with haste. She waited another few seconds before closing her mouth and moving back around to Jim’s side. A chuckle left him, and he squeezed Axel’s shoulder again and wrapped his free arm around him into a tight hug. “See, I told ya you’d be fine.”
“Heh, yeah, I guess it was.” Axel smiled wide. Leaning into Jim for just a moment, allowing himself to relax properly into his chest.
Axel pulled in a deep breath, shaky but deep, and pet down the spiked scales of Shirley’s back again. “We need each other,” he mumbled with a hoarse throat, “and I think that sticking together is the only way to make it out of this thing.”
She hissed out a breath, whether it was in response or not he didn’t know, but it felt nice to be acknowledged.
“We’ll find a way to make things right, to bring everyone home, to make things… Okay again. And we’ll do it together, like he wanted.”
He was talking to himself, he knew that; even though Jim claimed her to be smarter than anyone else thought, and she had those big glassy eyes that stared straight through your soul, there was no way she was smart enough to understand what he was saying. Still, it helped to know something - someone - else was there to help him through, keep him focused, keep him moving.
The fire beside them started to fade and die out, catching Axel’s eye for the first time since it was lit. He sighed softly, and moved to lay back, staring into the never ending grey skies above them. “We’ll do this together. I’ll look out for you, and apparently you have no problem doing that for me, too.”
He didn’t feel okay, not by any stretch of any imagination, but he felt… Quiet. He felt like maybe, rest was safe for now. He felt that things would still be the same when he woke up again, but he would know what to do with a rested mind. Just for a little while, a couple of hours at most.
And it hit him, more like a wave lapping at the sand this time, that he felt a little less hollow with Shirley by his side. He wouldn’t be okay for a long time, but he was more okay with her than he was alone. She was going to give him a reason to keep going, and maybe he would do the same for her.
His eyelids began to feel heavy, and he found it hard to keep them open. He fought it just long enough for Shirley to move, her jaw resting on his chest, over his heart. Her whole body kept him pressed into the ground, but he didn’t mind. She was almost like a blanket, barring the fact she ran colder than him. And the fact that she was heavy on him, but the pressure helped too, and he thought maybe she knew that. Sure enough, he found himself drifting off to sleep much faster than he had expected, feeling just an ounce more full than he had before. Grief may make us hollow, he thought to himself, but it’s those still with us that bring back our lost souls, even when we feel like they might be lost forever.
